Category Archives: Soluble/Non-soluble & Sinks/Floats

The rains don’t seem to want to leave our city, and rainy days means the kids stay at home. The challenge for most parent’s then becomes figuring out ways to keep the little ones occupied in meaningful activities. Since rain is all about water, I decided to do some water activities with the kids.

I organized water in containers and first did the dissolving activity with them followed by the sinking and floating activity. Big A participated actively, while little A watched. Before doing the activity, I told her Big A that was a scientist, and she had to think like a scientist, that is, she had to observe, analyze, predict results and then check/verify prediction.

We began with soluble and non-soluble items. Each time I asked her to pick the item and feel it with her hands, I asked her to describe how it felt – was it smooth, was it grainy, did it feel heavy or light. Then, I asked her to predict if it would mix into the water or stay at the bottom. Every time her prediction came right, she was thrilled.

Next, we did the sinking and floating activity. We followed the same inquiry-based learning method. She concluded that heavy items sink and light items float; and was super surprised when the bottle with paint bottle floated while the hair clip sank.

It was an hour and a half well spent, and by the time we were done, the rains stopped, so both of them put on their shoes and went down to play.